Deutsche Bahn Inter City Experimental

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Research on running high speed trains on existing railroad network began jointly by Deutsche Bahn and a group of railroad engineering companies (Siemens, Krauss-Maffei, Krupp - now ThyssenKrupp, Thyssen - now Thyssen Krupp, Henschel - now Bombardier, AEG - now Bombardier, and BBC - now Bombardier) in 1974, a year after (10 years after Japan launched the famous bullet train running at 130 mph) DB launched its 125 mph Inter City service with locomotive hauled trains much like the Northeast Regional. The decision came in 1982 that a test train with 2 locomotives (DB Class 410) permanently coupled to 3 cars be built to evaluate the concept of such a train. This train was dubbed the Inter City Experimental, delivered in 1985, the forefather of the sleek high speed trains today running DB’s Inter City Express services. The Inter City Experimental was renamed to ICE V and continued to run as a test train for research and evaluation purposes until 1998, 7 years after ICE 1 (DB Class 401) began her revenue service.

Inter City Experimental
The famous ICE 1
The Class 410 locomotives weigh about 86 tons and have an output of 5,600 horsepower each. During the years of testing, the Inter City Experimental set the land speed record then for railed vehicles on May 1, 1988 with a speed of 252.8 mph.

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